Saturday, April 21, 2007

In Georgia, Big Boy underwent the somewhat controversial procedure known as the duodenal switch, where not only is the stomach reduced, but the intestines are also rearranged in such a way that most food calories aren't absorbed.

"I told myself that all I had to do was wake up," Big Boy says of the operation.

"When I woke up and none of my dead homies were there, I knew it was all good."Complications still linger more than three and a half years later. But Big Boy's condition is nothing like it was in the months immediately following the procedure.

"I couldn't stop losing weight. I'd get lockjaw and a bad taste in my mouth. I was fainting a lot. I just started to decline. My body couldn't hold any proteins or nutrients. When I'd sit down, I could feel the pain in my back from the bones being so brittle. One time on the air, I just blacked out and busted my head open on the console. I'd gone from morbid obesity to malnourished." While his smile never falters, it's obvious the experience weighed heavily on him.

"There were times I was so out of it that the producer would position the microphone so I could lay on the floor of the studio to do my job. I'd be so delirious I would drive to work and not know how I got there. I had to have a catheter put into my chest to pump nutrition directly into my body. That went on for like two months.

Ultimately, Big Boy had part of his gastric bypass surgery undone just to allow his body to sustain itself.

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